This invention relates to a process for producing shaped marine-paste products (hereinafter referred to as "fish-paste products") and the like and to an apparatus therefor. More particularly, this invention relates to a process for rolling up a sheet-like fish-paste material into a rod-like shaped product or a roll and to an apparatus therefor.
Rod-like shaped products which are composed of assembled noodle-like fish-paste materials and colored suitably have been popular as so-called crab meat (leg)-like products or scallop muscle-like products.
As a method for producing such rod-like molded products, a process for assembling noodle-like fish paste materials into the rod-like products has been known. It is not easy, however, to form a fish-paste material into such a noodle-like materials and also to assemble or bundle the noodle-like material into the rod-like product.
In this respect, a process for producing a rod-like product without using such a noodle-like material has been proposed, which comprises forming a fish-paste product into a sheet, cutting parallel incision lines or grooves in the sheet to such a depth that the sheet is not cut off, and enrolling or rolling up the grooved sheet into a rod-like product with its axis parallel with the grooves. This process may be said to solve the above mentioned problems in that individual noodle-like shaped strands are not used, but an incised or grooved sheet easy to handle corresponding to a sheet of parallelly bonded noodle-like strands is utilized in the process.
Such conventional processes of rolling up the fish-paste sheet products, however, require a multiplicity of rollers for the rolling-up operation, whereby these processes are not always satisfactory with respect to the cost of manufacture, operation and cleaning of the apparatus.